The Blend & Comp node in ConnectFX

Now that we've used color correction as a way to explore the connecteffect's work flow,we're going to start to get deeper into the tools you have inside of that area.Connect Effects is a very powerful compositing tool.We're going to look at some different types of composition you can do inside ofthat tool.The first thing I'm going to show you is a neat trick we have inside ofconnect effects for creating composited effect looks.We'll take one clip and apply multiple effects to it andthen use Connect FX to decide how those effects will blend together.

I'm going to create a new sequence as always, I can right click on mysequences clip library and choose New Sequence or the shortcut Cmd N.And I'm going to call this sequence Blend and Comp.And create, and if youhave other sequences open from earlier work you can close those if you'd like.What I'm going to work on with this first example of composting inside ofConnect Effects, is taking a single clip andusing a composite setup, to make a more complex overall look.

I'm going to continue to work with this same opening scene master.I have that clip still open in my source monitor, if you don't,you can select it in your clip library and again accept the normal ins andouts, and hit F10 to overwrite it into the timeline.And I'm going to hit Shift z to fit that timeline into my window.I'll then select that clip, and again either choose your FX button,right click on the clip or use the shortcut control tab toget your effects selector, and I'm going to choose create connect effects.So what I'm going to look at forthis effect is how we can take multiple effects and blend them together.

I'm going to try to make a really neat animated look to this effect, so what I'mgoing to first place into this area is an effect we have called edge detection, socome to your node bin, remember you can scroll through the node bin to find it.You can hold your mouse over the node then and hit E to bring upjust the effects that start with E, which in this case is just Edge Detect.And if this is something, you can save to another tab to find it more easily.But I'm going to choose this Edge Detect, hold down the Option key, andbring it up into the path.Edge Detect is a really interesting visual effect that creates a new look based onthe edges of all the objects in the clip.

But there are some things we can change about it.To get access to it's controls, I'm going to double click it's node.One of the things that I like to do if I'm trying to create a bit more ofa look is to use this option under edge effects that says double edge.What that does is it thickens all of the edge detections soyou're getting a bit more of a look here.Right now, it almost looks like I have a version of my clip that was made out ofneon or something, it's pretty cool.By default, what you get when you use the edge detect is a clip made out ofjust those edges.But if you'd like, you can actually those detected edges andthe original clip together in a neat way.

In order to do that, I am going to change my result output over here,I'm going to click it to toggle it from edge only to result.It doesn't make a change yet because in order for me to see that result,I have to blend those edges down to the original clip behind them.That's where I come to this blending mode.I'm going to choose the blend mode subtract,whenever you're using blend modes I always recommend choosing some different ones andsee how they turn out because the result of that blend will depend onthe specific pixels being blended.But I'm going to choose subtract, andwhat I get is this sort of neat painted version of my clip.

I can also adjust the blend by adjusting this transparency value to give itsort of more or less of that painted look.So I've created kind of an interesting look here.I'm going to combine this edge detect look with a second visual effect tocreate a different overall look, so I'm going to come back to my fx nodes.The second effect I am going to add is a really neat one called stylized andI love this effect, it gives us access to a bunch of really interesting presets.This gives you a fast way to apply some really looks to your clips.

I could drag this stylized node into the schematic andconnect it into the path between my edged attached and my results node andthat would add those two effects together.However, it would add them together in a way that didn't let me control how theyadded together.So I'm going to do this a little bit differently, andyou'll see some really cool stuff we can do inside of this connect effects.Instead I'm going to bring it into the schematic butnot automatically connect it in.Instead I'm going to drag a connection from my clip to this stylized node andI'm going to double click that stylized node to get access to it's effect.

Now there's already a look that's applied, andlike I said, the stylized node is largely about working with these presets.The preset menu is over here to the right, if I click the down arrow next tothe presets, I will get a long list of all the available presets.If you happen to know what the exact preset is that you want to use,this might be great.You already have one that's a favorite andyou know exactly what it's called, you can just grab it quickly here.But if you'd like to see what they look like,instead of clicking on that down arrow,I'll click on the actual Presets button and take myself to the Presets browser.

Now if I go into one of these categories, I'm going to go into this onecalled comic, you'll notice that I still see just a list that's not very helpful.Up at the top left of this browser is a button that says titles.If I click that to toggle, instead I get proxies, and now what I get isa little preview image of what a clip might look like with that effect applied.I can also navigate back up one level to see all of the categories, andI could either go back into another category, or I can also turn onthis button that says scan subdirectories and see all of the presets at one time.

I'm going to choose this first impression as painting precept, but Iwant you to notice something, as soon as I click on that precept, I get this warning.Because stylize works with presets I can turn on a preset andthen make adjustments to it.But if I go choose a new preset I will get this warning letting meknow I'm resetting everything inside of that stylize node.That's totally fine, that's what I want to do I'll click confirm.And I've now made an impressionist painting out of my clip, but sofar, I only have the option to see one effect or the other.

When you are navigating this schematic by the way,you can always click on different parts of the path to see how things are adding up.I can click on the original clip to see it without the effect and at this point intime I click on either the edge detect to see what that looks like orthe stylized to see what that looks like.And at the moment my results look the same as the edge detect because that'sthe only path that completes all the way to the result node.I now need a node that will blend these two together.I'm going to go back to my FX nodespin and what I'm looking foris a very powerful effect called blend and comp.

What this note is going to let me do is bring these two effects in andthen decide how they blend together.I'm actually going to go ahead and place the blend andcomp in the already completed path that goes out the results.Now, something I want to point out about this blend andcomp node, you notice it has two red inputs.What this means is I can connect two different streams into thisone connecting node and blend those two together.So, I am going to click and drag from the output of my stylized to the second redinput on my blend and comp and if I double-click the controls for my Blend &Comp, what I'm seeing is the result of those two effects blended together.

We still have more we can do with that, but it's already taken those two andturned them into one overall effect.So what you have with Blend & Comp are two separate sets of controls.Input one allows you to make changes to the first input on my effect detect.Input two allows you to make changes to the input from the second effect,my stylize.So you have an overall color wheel.So for instance I could take that impressionist painting Imade with the stylize and maybe cool the color tones down a bitby dragging the color wheel toward cooler colors.

You can change the saturation, the color levels,the transparency you can make all kinds of changes to those individual layers.But the power of this blend and comp is this blend area over to the left,by default we're just adding them together as simple blend mode.But you'll notice under blend type, and this will be interesting for those ofyou with Photoshop experience, we can choose different blend types including.Photo shop, and what this gives me access to in the blend mode, is allof the different blend types that we have available to us inside of photo shop.

I'm going to choose soft light, andwhat I now have is a very interesting blended version of those two effects.Where my edges are sharp and brought out edge relief because of that edge detect,but there's als an impressionist sort of look from that stylized andI've blended them together in the way that I have chosen.With this blended look, I want to show you one last thing aboutnavigation within this Connect Effect Schematic.I already showed you before how I can sort of walk through the Schematic.I can start at the original clip, I can see it with just the edge detect orjust the stylized and I can step further forward to the Blend andComp to see the combination of the two.

What if I wanted to get a chance to see my output without everything that's inthe path involved?Let's say that, for whatever reason, I wanted to temporarily turn offthe Edge Detect to see how that was affecting the overall image.If you select any node in your schematic, you'll notice that over tothe bottom right of your screen you have a button that says bypass.If I click on bypass, you'll notice that the outputs on that node turn red andnow if I select my final result I'm seeing only the effect from the stylize.

If you ever want to turn a node back on,you can select that node and turn bypass off.What this gives you the ability to do is look atyour final result with something further back turned off,rather than only being able to see the effect path moving forward.So this blend in comp is an incredibly powerful tool inside ofconnect effects that will let you create blended looks.In very customized ways, I'm going to exit back out to the timeline.As we've seen in previous lessons, rendering in 2015 is greatly improved.

Even with Connect Effects, you can generally scrub through.You may even be able to play back, though you may see dropped frames ordifferences in playback quality.If you need to play it back smoothly and it's not playing back without rendering.You can't always select the clip andrender it but you should be able to at least see your work.In the next lesson we're going to take the idea of compositing in Connect Effectseven further and look at keying clips inside a complex Connect Effects scene.

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Released

8/27/2014

Autodesk Smoke's interface and workflow make it accessible to editors who want not only the power of its finishing tools, but also an intuitive and welcoming interface. Amy Leland introduces you to this powerful video editing platform and reviews the workflows for timeline editing, color correction, 3D animation and compositing, and motion graphics. This course follows the workflow of a Smoke project, allowing editors to learn the major stepping-stones in the finishing process, from importing media to exporting your final project. Highlights include adding effects and transitions, working with 3D animation and other Action effects, color correcting footage, and creating 3D text.